Few days ago as I was browsing through the photos of other player's "caves", I noticed that there is one common furniture present on most of the pictures - small IKEA made glass cabinet "Detolf". Well, it is no suprise really, as this exact cabinet is frequently mentioned as affordable and good for our purposes - showing miniatures. I do have such a cabinet myself. Only one as I don't have a space for another one or two but mine is slightly different as I modified it.

Since the very beginning, even before I bought this cabinet, I didn't like that shelves are being so far from each other. It is great if one is putting there some china but is is waste of precious space for miniatures. The simplest solution is to use some acrylic stands for some miniatures. But this is actually bad solution - such stands are very light and easily moved, which makes putting miniatures under them and taking them out a potentially dangerous. Figures may be knocked over and damaged. Personally I don't like my miniatures being damaged so I rejected this solution.

This cabinet is supported by internal metal rods, not glass panels. Rods are about 5 mm thick, they make kind of internal grate, supporting glass shelves. Glass panels are just external surfaces. I decided to make another three shelves, mounted between original ones. I took one of the original shelves to the glass cutter and shortly thereafter I have had three more - having almost the same dimensions and thickness of the original shelf. Almost - original shelves are 28,5 x 38 cm, new ones are 29,5 x 38 cm. It was necessary to make them slightly deeper to mount them in new positions. Lowermost original shelf is left as it was originally - larger space there may be used for putting there really large models.

Additional shelves are mounted to the metal rods with metal wire clamps bought in home depot store. It is important to choose the right kind of clamps - with internal space big enough to put it around the metal rod and with total width allowing it to be mounted between glass side of the cabinet and wire. Mine clamps have 6 mm wide opening and metal caps are 22 mm wide. They fit almost perfectly (they are just a little bit on a big side, so some of them had to be mounted diagonally ).

Additional shelves are great - I managed to almost double my shelf space for suprisingly small additional price. Do it:)

It is quite strange, that although I'm interested in ancient history period "age of chariots" I strongly dislike to paint them and - especially - assembly them on the final base. It is not strange then that the only elements of my Later Achaemenid Persian army which are left to the very end are both chariots. First of them, scythed one, is visible here. It looks dangerous but, if we are to believe ancient authors, was not especially effective at the battlefield. So, the only thing left to paint in this army is another chariot, with king of Persia, and a camp.

And one final note about reins. There should be eight strips visible of course, but even four stronly dominates the model. I'm not really satisfied with the look of reins as they are now, as they carefully shaped bent just vanished after painting and model lost part of its dynamic I think.

Some time ago I mentioned russian Galaxy Aflame music group, heavily influenced by "Warhammer 40 000" game. Texts are directly related to background of the game. Litany of Wrath, Lament of the Thousand Sons or Temptation of Horus - these are names of some of the group songs. Music may be labelled as heavy gothic industrial and personally I like it so much, that first seven songs, which were available earlier, are on my player all the time.

This short guide about painting Non Metallic Metal was written by Jarek "Camelson" Drabek, one of the best Polish miniature painters. You can see his works here. Photos in this article comes from Jarek's website and show miniatures painted by him.

Inkub

Hi, this is Camelson. I would like to share with you some basic informations about NMM - painting technique known as Non Metallic Metal. We can use this technique to paint some "metallic" parts of the model using ordinary, non-metallic paints. The most important thing in this technique is setting the light source. Usually it is the point directly above the miniature.

Non Metallic Metal painting is actually not that hard, it is just mixing paint correctly. Usually black with different shades of grey and white for silver NMM and black and yellows, oranges, browns and white for gold NMM.

Technically speaking, painting golden and yellow NMM is the same - I will briefly describe how to paint silver NMM.

Once we have estabilished light source and we know which paint to use, we start by mixing base colour. In the case of silver NMM I mix black and grey - making sort of dark grey. Paint with this mix whole element. Then add to the mix a little bit of grey and again paint another layer. There are two important things to remember here. First, each layer must be painted with thoroughly dilluted paint. Second, every layer should be painted slightly smaller, to leave small fragment of previously painted layer visible. We are leaving some visible layers of course but we will deal with them later. Layers should be painted tille the colour we use is pure grey.

It is time to add some middleshades now. We will use light brown paint, very strongly dilluted - just like wash. Put a little of this paint on the very tip of your brush and gently "smear in" between painted layers. We can use another colour - turquoise - for additional contrast.

Once we have middleshades painted in, it is time to paint strong shadows using black wash. Put a little of it on the very tip of your brush and "smear it" in the places, where strong shadows should be. We should repeat this till we will be satisfied with the contrast achieved. Then mix pure white with large quantity of water. With this mix we will paint some highlights in places, where light should reflect from the surface of the painted element. Then paint the very thin pure white line on the edges of the element, using side of the brush hair.

The very last step is painting a tiny dot of pure white on this edge, in the place where light reflects the most.

Third of the last dozen of ghouls, the end of painting this unit is closer and closer. And again, old miniature and - to be honest - one I don't really like. Miniature itself is fine but its pose causes a lot of problems during game. Unfortunately - in WFB if one is not using miniatures looking as being sculpted at "Attention" pose, one has problems with ranking them in the unit. It is quite a common thing to number miniatures under the bases and put them in the appropriate place marked on the movement tray. Stroppy thing to do.

As a kind of reward for myself, I can show a photo of all three ghouls together.

Another one of my horde of old corpse eaters. Why Hamlet? Well, it is my sick imagination and this skull holded by ghoul. This miniature was painted in exactly the same way as previous one. The only thing painted slightly differently then in other ghouls holding swords or any other blades was painting this one as a bronze, not made of iron of steel. Old blood effects are a little too strong I think but I needed some visible, brighter splash of paint on the miniature. After finishing whole unit, models will be matt sprayed again and blood effects will be painted with gloss varnish.

It is finally hot summer here, school holidays are in a full swing as it is cucumber season, at least judging by the programmes of tv stations, paper magazines or Internet news sites. But fear not - "Chosen of the week" is as good as ever, with this issue being one of the biggest so far I think.

- Well, another link, another WH40K thing... Very nice (if nice is a right kind of word to describe anything connected with Nurgle) Death Guard Legion dreadnought painted by LUK from Brush Brothers blog.

- Let's for a moment jump from a Polish to Russian blog - Nadya River and her evil dwarfs command group - excellent, yet unreleased miniatures from Russian Alternative producer. Other sculpts in this manufacturer's catalogue are really nice too.

- If you ever wondered what to do with all leftover bits from Tyranids models, look no further. Just look here. Great looking Tyranid space fleet for "Battlefleet Gothic" or any other space combat game.

- Last link in this part of this issue of "Chosen..." will take us to James Wappel's blog and his first painted bike from White Scars chapter.

All kinds of guides:

- Oldhammer is a name of kind of grassroots movement of fans of old editions of Warhammer - third, maybe fourth edition at the most. One of the most important websites of this movement is Realm of Chaos 80 blog. You can read how to get involved in playing old Warhammer games there.

- And last but not least - Spring Angel 2013's jury verdict document. I wish all painting competitions verdicts were presented in such form. Detailed description of winning entries with good and bad things pointed out by jury.

Second link will lead to Skulldred blog, where you can familiarize yourself with upcoming skirmish fantasy game being written by David King. You must register for beta tests in order to download the rules.

Last thing is all about Six-Day War in 15 mm scale. You can read and download modified "Flames of War" rules for refightning this war here. There are army lists for Israel, Egypt and Jordanian forces as well, with Syrian and PLA forces being still in works.

Other:

For many players wargaming is about building - worlds, units, campaigns, wars. I like to read something like this sometimes and here you can read very interesting example of such "building". Jeff Vader from Officio Conventorum blog makes his own lesser Chaos god using "Realm of Chaos" rulebooks. He invents, draws and builds miniatures of Mhorrigot - god of callousness, cynicism, ruthlessness and indifference. Excellent piece of work - his drawing of greater demon of Mhorrigot is visible next to the English part of this note. You can also read second article about his imaginary god...

Only the Grey Knights survive in the service of the Ordo. All other troops die when given over to them. The reason for non-survival among military units attached to the Ordo Malleus is simple. Any troops that an Inquisitor Ordinary has commanded have been exposed to Daemons. They are privy to one of the most closely-guarded Imperial secret: that Deamons exists and Chaos is terrible threat. Those that survive a battle or campaign are executed, with full honors, shortly afterwards. They are expendable, and entire Imperial regiments and corps have been despatched by the Ordo Malleus.

The most notable occasion was at the end of the Nexxas Exculpation (M.40.561). An incursion by the Traitor Legionnaires of the Emperor's Children was opposed by a complete Imperial Army corps. Once the invasion had been beaten off the corps was destroyed by orbital bombardment from an Ordo warship. The Imperial records were altered to show that a renegade force of Eldar was responsible for the destrucion ot the unit.

The only general exception to this policy of secrecy-by-extermination are Adeptus Astartes units. Execution of a Marine is seen as wasteful. Marine units are mindscrubbed rather then killed - their memories destroyed rather than their bodies. Mindscrubbing removes any and all memories of the Ordo's true purpose, but requires its victims to be completely retrained. Mindscrubbed Marines cannot even feed themselves, let alone fight for the Imperium.

Of the Adeptus Astartes only the Grey Knights, the Ordo's "Chamber Militant" are allowed to retain their memories. The centuries have proved that the Grey Knights can keep the secret of the Ordo's hidden war against Chaos as well as any Inquisitor.

The dirty dozen is my last twelve miniatures of old ghouls for my unit of them. To be honest, some of them are already fully finished and all of them are just waiting for final touches but there is still full dozen of them to show. And today is first of them.

To speed up the painting I used airbrush so whole dozen of corpse eaters will be finished in very similar colors - muted, rotten green with some purples and reds. White basecoat was airbrushed on all miniatures at the same time, then I spray black on the lower surfaces, to make instant, strong shadows. Then I airbrushed white again - zenitally and after that miniature was airbrushed with some Vallejo green color. Unfortunately I don't remember which one - some green from historical WW2 range. Highlights were done with adding muted yellow and white to the green paint and gently airbrushing it in lighter and lighter layers zenitally. After the paint was dry it was time for oil washes (purple and red) to make some smooth color transitions on joints, wounds and to give miniature some colors. After that final highlights were painted with standard brush and acrylic paints, as were all details - claws, teeth, eyes.

Last Sunday I searched through my hobby-related old boxes with wargaming stuff. In one of boxes I found some leftovers of my the oldest "true" terrain pieces. "True" - means not made from cardboard. Since the very beginning of my adventure with wargaming, cardboard terrain was barely tolerated by me - it just doesn't look good enough on the table I think. Photo above shows close-up of one of my home-made hedges, made from one of the most versatile wargaming material ever - scouring heavy duty green pads (visible next to this note). I'm looking for green variant to this very day, every time when I'm in the right store. Hedge was made according to the instructions published in one of the old "White Dwarfs" I think - and it is still almost ok in my opinion - for fantasy battles. I have had quite a few more but the three of them visible on one of the photos are the last still in my possession. Another photo shows remains of my "walls" collection. Making such walls is very easy and final result could be satisfying - with more realistic size and weathering of course. And on the last photo you can see commercial hedge, exactly the same as the ones visible on the pages of "White Dwarf" in these bygone days... True treasures then, in Poland...

I wonder... should I write some tutorials about building such simple terrain?

Our Epic 30K project is not forgotten but progress has been really slow. My bro painted his three dreadnoughts lately and I managed to paint just three Land Raiders for my Legion, very old models which comes from original boxed "Space Marine" game, first so to say edition of GW's Epic. And as they are so old, they fit perfectly in Horus Heresy era - they represent older Land Raider design, from the Rogue Trader era, even more boxed and higher then current ones. Painting is very simple - basic color, light oil wash (maybe too light), then details, some highlights and light weathering. There will be also decals added to all vehicles, with Legion's Iron Gauntlet, but I have to finish them all first.

Looking for a miniatures for "Muskets & Tomahawks" I searched through catalogues of many companies. There is quite a lot of manufacturers producing figures for this period but I've found that quality of sculpts is lacking in many cases - at least judging by the pictures available online. Most of the producers sell miniatures lacking specific details making them members of particular tribe - specific haircuts, leggins or boots are almost non existent. And as I was looking for a British-allied Indians, I wanted them to be as close to originals, as possible. Fortunately Conquest Miniatures makes exactly what I need - higly detailed miniatures of Woodland Indians in dynamic poses, with enough details to mark them as belonging to specific tribes. This company makes full range of accompanying miniatures also (settlers, soldiers, rangers, etc. - for both sides of the conflict). After seeing some pictures of painted miniatures online, I decided to buy miniatures from Conquest. Fortunately, Warlord Games has just started selling Conquest's French-Indian War products then, and most important miniatures were repacked in boxed sets under the label of WG's "Black Powder" game. Great!

Box itself is made from rather thin cardboard, prone to being damaged easily. Front side has large, very nice painting of Woodland Indians war party at combat, back side has photos of painted miniatures and short text describing Indian's history. There is one photo of Indian chief - sachem - being especially visible, as this miniature is unique for this boxed set.

Inside there is a sheet of much thicker cardboard with two plastic blisters stuck in it and two-sided color leaflet with more detailed history of Woodland Indians, their tactics and examples of painted miniatures - the same as are visible on the back side of the box.

Miniatures inside blisters - nineteen figures - are not protected from damages in any way - besides the plastic blister itself. They move inside blisters VERY easily. To be honest I have had a bad feelings about this right after getting the box - miniatures hitting each other were clearly audible. Fortunately, my figures weren't damaged but this was not the case with my bro's box. His sachem has broken arm with the weapon. Most serious damage in my box were two badly bended barrels but I think they were bended in the factory, during removal from the moulds. This is sign of pretty bad quality control for me, as making such barrels perfectly straight isn't easy and it tends to weaken the metal. You can see on some pictures both bended muskets and how they look like after I tried to make them straight.

One of the miniatures inside the box is exclusive to this set - Indian sachem. The rest comes from different sets of Conquest Miniatures, I think they are taken from "Iroquis Warriors A" and "B" sets mostly. There are fifteen different miniatures inside my box, with four more being duplicates. Some miniatures look similar but they have different gear, haircuts, etc. Painted with different colors, they will certainly look different enough on the table. As with all other Warlord Games' boxed sets, there are no bases inside - all miniatures have integral small metal bases but they certainly need to be based on commercial or homemade bases for gaming. All miniatures carry gunpowder weapons, most of them, if not all, are muskets.

Miniatures are sculpted in true 28 mm scale, which means they are almost correctly proportional. In comparison to Perry Miniatures' Indians, they are slightly smaller but much more detailed. I think they are little more dynamic too. Details, especially haircuts, identify them as Iroquis - non-Hurons. As the largest differences between Hurons and other Iroquis were colors and haircuts, I think it is safe to say that they can be useful for both sides of French-Indian war.

Quality of casting is pretty good - besides two bended barrels all my miniatures have clearly visible mould lines too, but there was no miscasts or any deformities. Working with small file will be necessary, of course, but I think final effect will be great.